NaNoWriMo 2013

Well, it's all over. NaNo 2013 has come to an end and as ever I've been stunned by the hard work and dedication of our writers. We had around 30 students taking part this year, not as many as in 2012 but our dropout rate was far lower too.

After a month of lunchtime and after school workshops, word sprints and melt downs, our month culminated in a final frantic day of writing on Friday 29th.  Kind and understanding teachers excused them from their lessons and they headed up to colonise the library. It all started calmly enough. Neat groups, sat around tables and pouring out words, but within an hour the structures of society fell away and chairs were abandoned, writing forts were constructed out of chairs, beanbags and snacks. It was wonderful!

My highlights of the day:
Sacha hitting his word goal and doing victory laps of the library.
Kiera weeping as she killed off one of her characters.
Huw's exploration of torture (though I admit this was more disturbing than I should encourage).
Robyn's wonderful scenes between her two main characters. So. Cute.
Caitlin setting down for a quick snooze with Hobbes, the libary tiger.

Well done to everyone who took part, both those who won and those who were still slogging away at the end of the month. You're all stars.

3…2…1...Open Evening is GO!

Well, it’s nearly go. It will be go on Thursday, when we once again open up the school to the hordes of local Year 6 children, enthusiastic Year 5s and there’re always a few Year 4s being shown around with parents who clearly believe in extreme preparation.  The whole school is looking spick and span, with the newly refurbished hall is looking particularly impressive.

Up here, we’ll be showing off our collection and sniffing some of our new books, with some of our student librarians settling down to do book covering, sticky sticking and reading chat. We’re also hosting several small workshops run by our Craft Club members, which is just wonderful as we’re just able to hand them resources and off they go. Kiera in Yr 9 will be running a Zentangling workshop, ably assisted by her new apprentice Millie, Robyn in Yr 9 will be running a crochet session and Theo in Yr 8 will be teaching prospective students how to make flapping paper origami cranes. I’ll be supervising these things, sneaking off to read a few pages of my book (I’ve finally jumped on the Gone Girl bandwagon and OMG… Remind me never to get married. Ever.) and gabbling about books and reading to all and sundry.  Usually we send several families away with long lists of recommendations to take a look at, which always puts a smile on my face.

Our huge notice board out along the English corridor will be split this year into features about our most popular books and awards for our most avid readers, with additional sections on Nerdfightaria and Craft Club. As ever, it’s nearly impossible to tell if you have enough resources for that thing until it’s time to put everything up, but I’m hopeful! Have been inspired by Pinterest this year and have coloured in all my staples withSharpies. Yes, I am that sad. But they look really pretty and everyone else will be really jealous. Just you wait and see… 

And how the blazes do Frank House have so many House points already?! They're up over 400! C'mon Wilberforce, this year is OUR YEAR.

Happy New Academic Year!

It's September again! Seems that it came round really fast this year, but we were glad to come back to our lovely students and a new intake of Year 7s who seem more excited about reading and books than any we've had so far, so it should be a great year!  Have already identified a key group of comic fans who I'm hoping will join us to shadow the Stan Lee Excelsior award.

So, what's going to be happening this year?  Hopefully, loads! I've had my contract upgraded to full time, from term time only and a set number of hours per day, so fingers crossed, all the little extras and activities that I've always wanted to get going (yes, including regular blogging) may finally get off the ground. I'm looking forward to the following things:

• NaNoWriMo! I'm going to be hitting November at full pelt again this year, with a large crowd of young writers at my side.  There will be snacks.
• 24 Hour Readathon.  It took a surprisingly short amount of time for the students to convince me that it would a good idea to do this again. It certainly was an experience last time, even if it did lead me to the woeful conclusion that I'm too old to pull an all-nighter.  Woe, woe and woe indeed.
• Reading programmes with Year 7 and 8.  In consultation with our literacy coordinator, Mrs Briggs, we're going to be getting Reading Passports for all our younger students and using these as a keystone for our work on developing good learning and reading habits, and reading for pleasure.
• Scholars' Projects.  This is an expansion of the Nerdfighter projects that we started working on a few years ago, and will be targeted towards our Gifted and Talented students, known as the Roundwood Scholars.  There'll be more structure to it that the 'off you go' attitude of the Nerdfighter ones, but there is a lot of student crossover so I know I'll be seeing some amazing work! Hoping that I can engineer a trip to Alton Towers as a reward. No, not just for me, for the students.  And me. I do love a good rollercoaster... *sigh* 
• MOAR BOOKS! We don't really need to go into detail with that one! There will be more books, and more reading. Along with coffee, that's the best thing ever.
• Craft Club. This will be continuing after school on Thursdays, so our knitters, crocheters and sewing fans will have a weekly focusing session, possibly involving snacks. 

I'm also going to be following the progress of some of my local librarian colleagues, who are trying out a new system of working with the non-fiction parts of their collection.  The idea is to make it much more focused and more directly relevant to curriculum modules, tying non-fiction back into research and learning.  It's a wonderful idea and a mammoth undertaking to get it in place, and I have absolute admiration for those who are trying it out! 

It's going to be a busy year.  Looking forward to it :)